WordCamp Pune Part One: Getting There

September 5, 2015

I’m writing this from my hotel room in Pune, India. This is my first time outside North America, so everything is new and interesting and exciting.

I left home about 30 hours ago, going from Grand Rapids to Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany to Pune. Because of delays due to weather my layovers were cut quite short, so I pretty much moved from plane to plane.

The flight from Chicago to Frankfurt was the toughest. I was seated between two other people who got to either lean on something or stretch into the aisle to sleep. There was an actual medical emergency, and they asked if there was a doctor on board. Some guy leapt up and went to save the day. A doctor’s dream. 🙂

The flight from Frankfurt to Pune was on a much smaller plane, but not even close to full. I had an aisle on one side and an empty seat on the other side, so I was able to sleep a little more comfortably.

Speaking of sleep, I landed in Pune about 4am local time, which is about 6pm home time. I don’t want to sleep my whole time away while I’m here though, so I worked hard to mess with my sleep patterns on the flights. I basically slept the entire afternoon of home time, so I can be up all night home time.

Security has been interesting. In Frankfurt, to get on my plane to India I had to go through a metal detector, even though I hadn’t left the airport. Then, about 30 feet later, I had to do it AGAIN. Two scanners, back to back, inside the airport.

In the Pune airport you have to go through a scanner immediately after leaving the plane. I sent my bag through with the laptop still inside and they didn’t mind. I left all my pocket stuff in my pockets, and of course it beeped at me, but rather than take it all out I simply looked at the armed soldier and said “it’s my phone” and he smiled and said “okay!”.

Today I plan to hang out with the Alphabet Sambar group as well as go to Foundation Day. This evening comes the speaker dinner, and then sleep.